Los Angeles
County is not liable for the death of a mentally ill man who hanged himself in
his jail cell, the Court of Appeal for this district ruled yesterday.

In a 2-1
decision, the court affirmed Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Randolph Rogers’s
grant of summary judgment in an action brought by the family of David Geary.
Justice Judith Ashmann-Gerst authored the unpublished opinion, which was joined
by Justice Victoria Chavez, while Presiding Justice Roger Boren dissented.

The plaintiffs
contended that the county was liable under Government Code §845.6, which holds
a custodial employee, and the employing agency, liable for failing to take
reasonable action to summon medical care for a prisoner when the employee
“knows or has reason to know that the prisoner is in need of immediate medical
care.”

Geary hanged
himself at Palmdale Station Jail on the morning of March 18, 2011, a few hours
after being booked on charges of spousal abuse and vandalism. His wife said he
had been suffering from depression and extreme anxiety because of a decade-long
employment dispute, and that he had attacked her while she was driving him home
from the hospital, where sheriff’s deputies had taken him after he ransacked
their house searching for more pills after consuming an unknown amount of
sedatives and anti-anxiety medication.

In moving for
summary judgment, the county argued that jail personnel did not know, and had
no reason to know, that Geary needed immediate care. He had been given a
“suicide blanket”—made of stiff material that cannot be fashioned into a
noose—and was checked several times by jail personnel, who found him to be
communicative and cooperative and not morose or threatening, the county said.

Rogers, in
granting summary judgment, said it was beyond dispute that county personnel had
no reason to know that Geary needed immediate medical attention.

Ashmann-Gerst,
writing for the Court of Appeal, agreed.

Geary, the
justice noted, had repeatedly insisted that he was fine and had no intention of
hurting himself. Ashmann-Gerst also pointed out that Geary was given a medical
examination before being booked, and that the doctors found no reason why he
could not be booked into the jail.

“We are
satisfied that the County met its burden of showing there was no evidence to
satisfy the statutory element that employees knew or should have known that
David was in need of immediate medical care,” shifting the burden to the
plaintiffs to produce substantial evidence to the contrary, the justice wrote.

While the plaintiffs
were able to demonstrate the events that occurred before Geary was booked, and
also produced a medical screening form in connection with his booking,
confirming that he was a suicide risk who took medication for depression and
anxiety, that evidence did not establish that he “was in need of immediate
psychiatric care during the six or so hours he was in jail,” the jurist
emphasized.

Boren, in
dissent, noted that the Sheriff’s Department had been notified by Geary’s
sister that he had said he intended to kill himself following the violent
incident with his wife in the car, and that his wife had told deputies of a
conversation in which he referred to an earlier suicide attempt and said the
next time he was “going to do it right.”

The department,
however, never informed medical staff that Geary intended to kill himself, the
presiding justice noted.

While his
demeanor and statements at the jail “strongly weigh in favor of a finding of no
liability,” Boren argued, summary judgment should have been denied on the basis
of facts indicating “that the County likely had reason to know that [Geary] was
suicidal and in need of immediate medical care.”